Pacific Northwest Landscape / Nature Photography

2014

2014 is nearly in the books and I, for one, say good riddance. It was a year largely full of other commitments and little photography. I photographed sunrise on New Years Day and promptly broke the zoom ring on one of my lenses. Five months later, I dunked all of my gear in a river. Thankfully, most of the gear survived after a week of drying in a bag of rice but I did end up replacing one zoom lens with a new (used) copy and repairing my New Years Day lens a second time. My photography largely consisted of a week long trip to South Florida’s Gulf Coast during July 4th and a few day trips on either side of that. Despite the challenges of the past year, I have selected ten photos to highlight my year:

1.) The Storm – Sanibel Island, Florida
Storm clouds are probably somewhat fitting given my year. Taken during my week long stay on Sanibel Island, Florida, these storm clouds developed during sunrise towards the end of my trip. Gotta love the short walk from the rented guesthouse to the beach!

2.) The Hills Are Alive – Leavenworth, Washington State
One of my regular outings during spring is a trip over the mountains to the Leavenworth area to photograph the balsamroot flower displays. This year, I timed the trip perfectly to explore a new location. An entire hillside of blooming flowers all to myself!

My most recent outing which holds some special significance to me. This photo marks my return to Green Mountain in the Glacier Peak Wilderness. This location has largely been inaccessible for the last decade due to flood damage to the primary access road. Green Mountain was one of the first locations that I was taken to by friends once I moved up to Washington State. Once the road was finally repaired, I had to visit this place once again. Just visiting once again would have been enough but the sunset on this day turned out to be pretty spectacular.

During my visit to Florida, I got to experience several nights of “heat lightning.” The heat and humidity of the daylight hours turns into lightning offshore during the overnight hours. It was quite mesmerizing standing on the beach watching the constant lightning strikes. Thankfully, I was never in any danger while outside photographing it. I’ve only tried photographing lightning once before so I got plenty of practice!

I’m not much of a wildlife photographer but love to photograph it given the opportunity. During my trip to Florida, the J. N. ‘Ding’ Darling National Wildlife Refuge was just five minutes away from where we were staying. I only was able to make two trips to the refuge but enjoyed the time.

For our trip to Florida, We actually flew in and out of Fort Lauderdale and doubled back via car to Sanibel Island. Rather than take the quicker I-75, we opted for US-41 which took us through Big Cypress National Preserve. This Strangler Fig caught my eye during our quick stop at Kirby Storter Roadside Park.

At the end of this past summer, a promising aurora alert was issued after a solar flare and, for once, it coincided with clear skies. I staked it out for two nights but alas, the auroras never came. I was left with a few nice nighttime photos of Mount Baker and a couple newly scouted locations.

8.) Origins – Sanibel Island, Florida

This photo was taken in the pre-dawn minutes the same morning as photo #1. The heat lightning from the previous night was finally dying down but not before a few more strikes during the advancing light of the new day.

I swore I would never photograph Mount Shuksan from Picture Lake. The scene is SO tired and has been photographed to death. As it turned out, I stopped by the lake on a whim suggestion by my friend after we had photographed the super moon’s rise at sunset. No one was present and the mist rising off the lake provided the qualities I was seeking to set my photo apart from the thousands (if not millions) of other Picture Lake photos.

10.) Lava Lamp – Baring Mountain

This photo is just one photo from a series taken during a spectacular sunrise this fall. It was actually the culmination of repeated sunrise attempts at this particular location. The vindication was especially satisfying!

After a five month photo hiatus, I’ve returned! Spring has returned to the Pacific Northwest and the east slopes of the Cascade range are the first areas to have wildflower displays. I’ve made a trip to the Leavenworth area for the balsamroot blooms an annual occurrence but the timing for this can vary wildly from year to year. Last year, I visited around April 20th and conditions were virtually peak but several years ago, May 15th was the timeframe for peak conditions. This year’s peak blooms probably occurred around April 30th but MANY flowers were in prime conditions during my visit on May 3rd.

The balsamroot flowers in Tumwater Canyon and at Leavenworth Ski Hill (and the adjacent trails) all looked good. I normally would also visit Ollala Canyon near Cashmere but did not this year. A friend of mine did visit the previous weekend and conditions looked to be good out there as well. This year, I wanted to photograph something different. I decided to re-visit a location up Eagle Creek Road that proved to be fruitless last year- East Van Creek. It’s a location I found using Google Earth and looked to have the same type of conditions where the balsamroot flowers normally are found.

I was excited to see that this year, the flowers were out and numerous. A short but steep 300 foot ascent up a slope brought me up to a six acre meadow of balsamroot. To the southwest, Canon Mountain peaked over an intermediate ridge. To my southeast, the summit of Chumstick Mountain was visible. The area retains a natural look despite having been logged at some point in the past. To have this flower meadow all to myself for hours was spectacular. The meadow was pretty much all balsamroot but there were patches of lupine including one white lupine (the second I’ve ever seen in 15 years of wandering in the Cascades).

Welcome to my blog! Through it, I hope to provide more information about my photography as well as the stories that go with them. My focus is on the landscapes and natural environment found in the Pacific Northwest.